Strength in numbers

Ramon Magsaysay awardee Abdon Nababan has dealt with problems like land-grabbing, under-representation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in his nearly 30-year work with Indonesia’s indigenous communities.

Abdon Nababan has championed the rights of Indonesia’s indigenous people for almost 30 years

The challenges faced by Abdon Nababan and nearly 70 million indigenous people (IP) in Indonesia are classic cases that stretch beyond their land of birth. In fact, they’re endemic in almost every country, including the Philippines, where large groups of indigenous people live.

In recognition of “his brave, self-sacrificing advocacy to give voice and face to his country’s IP communities, his principled relentless, yet pragmatic leadership of the world’s largest IP rights movement, and the far-reaching impact of his work on the lives of millions of Indonesians,” the Manila-based Ramon Magsaysay (RM) Foundation awarded Nababan with the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award last August.

As the former secretary general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), the 53-year-old Nababan has dealt with such problems as land-grabbing of IP’s ancestral lands, their underrepresentation within the bureaucracy and the country’s corridors of power, and the failure of majority of Indonesia’s IPs to get the necessary government-issued identity cards because none of their homegrown religious beliefs fall under any of the six major “foreign” religions listed in the application form.

There are still plenty of IPs in the vast archipelago composed of more than 18,000 islands who are unable to vote, avail of public education and healthcare, and even secure passports because they don’t have national ID cards.

Many have been forced to convert to one of the six state-sanctioned religions to address the problem, said Abanan. If they insist, say, on practicing their indigenous religions, they risk further getting more isolated and forfeiting their claims on their ancestral lands.

“The common problem among indigenous people right now is land-grabbing by outsiders and big business, which happens everywhere, including, I guess, the Philippines,” he said. “Second, the political system doesn’t readily accommodate indigenous people resulting in their marginalization. Discrimination, whether or not overtly, is the main issue here, the feeling of being a minority in their own country.”

Oddly enough, Nababan, an indigenous person himself belonging to Sumatra’s Toba Batak tribe, was oblivious to his fellow IP’s plight during his activist days as a young university student. Despite fighting for a host of causes, he wasn’t as immersed about IP’s concerns back then. When and how did he experience a turning point?

“I was a university activist without being mindful that I am also an indigenous person,” he said. “Before I know it, the problem soon reached my community. It wasn’t my problem until it became my problem.”

According to a press material provided by the RM Foundation, Nababanwas working in an anti-logging campaign when he realized that the land being taken over by a big industrial lumber estate was ancestral land that belonged to his grandparents and other Toba Batak families. He has since raised this discovery of IP identity and responsibility to involve millions of others in the grassroots level.

“It’s about self-identification,” the press material quoted him as saying. “You have to make people understand: ‘This is about me. This is about my forest, this is about my land, this is about my water.’”

The realization was also a wake-up call for Nababan. Although he was already an activist, it made him pause and ask what was it that he was really fighting for. It crystalized his views and provided him with the big picture on how to be more effective by being more selective in his advocacies.

On receiving his fair share of death threats from various people and companies with respective agendas, “I’ve experienced that, too,” he said. “My group has experienced that. It’s the same all over the world. That’s why this Ramon Magsaysay Award is not only for me, but for everyone who faced the same problems.”

“Since we received threats from big companies as well as certain elements identified with the government,” he continued, “it’s difficult to enter a particular place because they’re suspicious of you. They call you either a separatist or anti-development. When they can’t find anything to label you or any legitimate or made-up reason to apprehend you, they would say you’re a communist.”

After helping launched AMAN with other like-minded individuals and IPs in 1999, soon after the fall of the Suharto regime, Nababan has seen how the organization grew to include 17 million members. As AMAN’s executive secretary and later its secretary-general, he has led what is now Indonesia’s “largest, and most influential non-state organization.”

From 200 IP communities in 1999, membership has grown to 2,342 communities in 2017. Apart from raising public visibility, AMAN has collaborated with government in legal reform, conflict settlement, and economic empowerment. But perhaps their strength in numbers was best exemplified in 2104 when IPs delivered 12 million votes, which tremendously helped then candidate Joko Widodo win Indonesia’s presidency.

Widodo got their votes after he made six commitments to address certain needs of the IP sector. It remains to be seen if government can deliver on all these promises, but AMAN’s power to make and unmake presidents can no longer be ignored.

Last March, Nababan stepped down as secretary-general of AMAN to pursue a bigger dream. Backed up, he said, by his fellow North Sumatrans’ clamor, especially its IP sector, Nababan has taken on the challenge of running for governor next year.

How does he plan to approach his new role as a politician? If he does win, isn’t he afraid of being swallowed up by the system and becoming one of them?

“I will take the same approach, which has served me well as head of AMAN,” he said. “One of the most important things a leader should learn is how to listen to the people. One must use inputs gained from them to influence decisions in government.”

The dangers of falling short and being blindsided and waylaid will always be there, Nababan conceded. In times of doubt and ambivalence, one has to rely on his values as a person.

“That’s where your values and the lessons you learned in life come in,” he declared. “These values weren’t developed overnight. I’ve developed and imbibed them for almost 30 years. You can’t take them away from me just like that.”

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